A Million Stories
by HermioneGirl96
Summary: Simon and Baz could each tell a million stories about the other. Simon could make you hate Baz, or doubt him, or love him. Baz could make you scorn Simon, or pity him, or adore him. And they each have to choose which story to tell.


**Disclaimer: It's Rainbow Rowell's.**

 **A/N: I'm writing this largely because I'm having a lot of complicated feelings right now about my first ex (if anyone here read "Heads over Heels," which I highly doubt, since I finished it four years ago and it's in another fandom, but if you did, I'm talking about the guy James is based on in that fic). Because I could tell a million stories about him, and I don't know which one is the one that counts. Does it matter more if someone hurt you or if they helped you? I don't know.**

 **SIMON**

I could tell you a million stories about Baz.

I don't realize it until my second Skype session with my psychologist. Then she says, "You keep mentioning someone named Baz. Who is he?"

I pause for a moment, because I haven't come out to her yet and I have no idea how she's going to react, but I figure lying to her is probably a bad idea, so I say, "He's my boyfriend." Before she says anything else, I add, "I'm not even sure if I'm gay, though. I had a girlfriend once."

"Tell me about Baz," she says. "We can worry about whether you're gay later."

I freeze, because her prompt is bigger than she can possibly imagine. _Tell me about Baz._ It takes me a moment to recognize what I'm feeling, because I haven't felt this way in a while, but then it hits me, familiar as my old room at Watford: I feel powerful. I can completely shape what she thinks of Baz, just by picking which parts of the truth to tell. I can tell her how he tried to kill me and make her hate him. I can tell her how he holds my hand and make her love him. I can tell her both and leave her deeply conflicted.

"We used to be roommates," I say finally. "We didn't get along, but then we made a truce when I offered to help him find out how his mom died, and then we became boyfriends."

"Why didn't you get along?" she asks.

"I never learned to get along with anybody," I say, which is part of the truth. "In the care homes, I mean."

"Do you want to talk about that?" my psychologist asks.

I gladly assent, because I want to get off of the topic of Baz for a while. Until I can figure out which story I _want_ to tell. But after my Skype session ends, I fall back on my bed at Penny's house and _think_.

I can make Baz out to be a posh git if I talk about the way he teased me first year for the clothes I showed up in. I can paint him as a monster just by mentioning he's a vampire. I can depict him as a villain by talking about the time he made me face the chimera or the time he pushed me down the stairs or the time he tried to steal my voice. He's done more than enough bad stuff for it to be easy to make people hate him.

But there are other options. I can make him sympathetic by talking about how his mother died and his father hates that he's gay. I can paint him as a hero by talking about how he and Penny came and found me when the Mage nearly killed me. I can make you love him by describing the way he looks at me, the way he kisses me, the way he holds my hand, the way he makes me feel like I'm enough.

It scares me that there are so many different ways to tell the truth, so many possible results. I miss the days when reality wasn't complicated and the world could be sorted into friends and enemies I needed to kill with my sword. (That's probably a problem. The missing-killing-things bit. I'll talk to my psychologist about that next time.)

I think today the story I want to tell about Baz is the one where he whispers sweet things to me in between kisses.

I hope it's the story I'll want to tell tomorrow.

 **BAZ**

I could tell you a million stories about Simon Snow. I've always known that, always been conscious of the narrative I was crafting about him to my family. But it hits me full force when my Normal uni friend Alexis Barrington asks me about Simon shortly after I come out to her.

"Tell me about your boyfriend" is all she says.

I figure I probably can't start with "He was the sun, and I was crashing into him," because what kind of normal person says something like that? So I wrack my brain and come up with "The rational part of me knows that he's kind of average, but I think he's beautiful. He always protects the people around him, even if he doesn't like them. He's willing to sacrifice anything if he thinks it's for the greater good. He can't dance or sing or speak very eloquently, but he's brilliant at maths and cooking. We were roommates at boarding school and hated each other right up until the moment I realized I was in love with him."

"And then everything was magically better?" She's raising one strawberry blonde eyebrow at me.

"No, and then I hated the world for three years for making me gay and putting me in close proximity to him."

"Ah," she says, toying with the end of her braid. "And then what?"

"Then he kissed me," I reply. That's all the detail she's getting, in large part because I know she believes firmly in Healthy Relationships and the circumstances of Simon's and my first kiss violates several principles of relationship health.

"And you lived happily ever after?"

I smile, careful not to show too many of my teeth. "Pretty much."

But that night, when I'm alone in my flat (Fiona's abroad again), I give the matter more thought. Who, in my estimation, is Simon Snow? A pitiful loser who could never manage proper magic? A selfless hero who sacrificed everything to save the world? A beautiful boy I'm lucky to get to kiss? An enemy who would have killed me if he'd had a real chance?

 _He's your boyfriend, silly_ , I tell myself, but that doesn't quiet the voice inside me saying that's just one of the million true stories I could tell about him.

What _does_ quiet that voice is the way he kisses me, the next time I see him. I want to tell whatever story keeps letting me kiss him like that.


End file.
